How do you give a C# Auto-Property a default value When the Property is a Class

Question

there is a similar question here . However my property is not an int or a string but a class itself with many properties of its own. So i want to set the default value to a property of a property.

So here is my example:

public class Claim
{
    public Person Member { get; set; }
    public Person Claimant { get; set; }
}

As you can see my properties arent int 's or string 's put they are Person 's. Each person has many properties and I want to set the default value of one of them for each object.

For example if I make a new person Like this:

Person Pete = new Person { PersonTypeID = 1 };

As you can see Person has a PersonTypeID property. Lets say I want to set that value as 1 for Member and 2 for Claimant as default values every time the Claim class in instantiated. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Since C#6 you can initialize auto-implemented properties :

public Person Member { get; set; } = new Person { PersonTypeID = 1 }; // or by using the constructor of Person
public Person Claimant { get; set; } = new Person { PersonTypeID = 2 };

otherwise use the constructor of Claim .

Answer 2

Try this in a lazy way

public class Claim
{
    public Person Member { get; set; }
    public Person Claimant { get; set; }

    public Claim()
    {
        this.Member = new Person() { PersonTypeID = 1 };
        this.Claimant = new Person() { PersonTypeID = 2 };
    }
}

or

public class Claim
{
    public Person Member { get; set; }
    public Person Claimant { get; set; }

    public Claim(int MemberTypeID, int ClaimantTypeID)
    {
        this.Member = new Person() { PersonTypeID = MemberTypeID };
        this.Claimant = new Person() { PersonTypeID = ClaimantTypeID };
    }
}